If the wild Wisconsin weather cooperates, tomorrow morning I'll be leaving on my way to the World Money Fair in Berlin, Germany. The WMF is one of the worlds largest coinshows in terms of Mint represenation.

There will be 16 world mints attending this years WMF, including the official guest of honor, the Mint of the Peoples Republic of China, and each will be presenting some aspects of their scheduled 2008 coinage programs at a media forum during Friday, the first day of the show.

On Saturday, my little band of travels will be presenting the Coin of the Year Awards, a program that Krause Publications has been holding annually for the last 25 years.

This year COTY also added a live interent voting program for a People's Choice Award, the results of which will be announced in Berlin. Online voting turned out to be very popular and there was a high degree of competition between countries, presumably supported by their clubs and national organizations.

About the AuthorTom Michael has been Krause Publications primary market analyst on more than 80 world and United States coin catalogs produced over the last 20 years. He came to KP in 1987 with a bachelor of arts degree in history, a master of arts degree in economics and a history of coin collecting stretching back to the 1960s. He began collecting world coins as a child by asking friends and relatives to bring coins back from overseas trips, visiting flea markets and having his mother watch for foreign coins in her register at the local grocery store. Today he works with a dedicated base of over 200 contributors to provide accurate market values for the five-volume Standard Catalog of World Coins series, as well as many specialty catalogs, including Coins & Currency of the Middle East and the fifth edition of Unusual World Coins.